2001 Space Clipper Orion, Moebius 1/144 *** FINISHED ***

[hakkikt]

So here we go.  This is the slightly improved 3rd issue of Moebius' Orion space clipper, which made a brief appearance in "2001 - A Space Odyssey".  From what I learned from reviews, the re-issue has apparently been improved in a few minor points and can be distinguished by (1) the box image (shared by issue 2 and 3), and (2) by the fact that it says "1/160" on the box instead of "1/144" as in the 2nd edition.  Well, if the fans cannot make up their minds about the scale, what is a manufacturer supposed to do...

The kit is a VAST improvement over the old Airfix 1/144 kit.  I purchased the Moebius while I still had the Airfix (intending to build the latter as a Lufthansa version), and while they are of equal length, the shapes differ considerably - the Airfix kit is much more of a walrus in comparison to the sleek Moebius.  I ended up tossing the Airfix kit, with the exception of the PanAm decals, which do fit the Moebius kit and can be seen here next to the Moebius decals, which are large but include no airline markings whatsoever.

Part count is... manageable 🙂, which means that even a slow builder like me should be able to meet the May deadline for this GB.  We'll see!😄

Edited May 18 by hakkikt

[bianfuxia]

Fantastic choice - I've nearly pulled the trigger on this once or twice but wasn't sure I could do it justice as it's a pricey kit where I am. Very much looking forward to watching along with your build!

[CliffB]

What a great addition to the Group Build 

[hakkikt]

Thank you for the kind words, I hope I can give you an interesting result.

 

So far, I have masked off the passenger windows and the edges of the hull parts and sprayed the interior with black primer (I use Citadel Chaos Black).

One might think that the windows all have the same dimensions, but they don't - height is identical, but width varies by a millimetre or so, enough that every window must be custom masked. Not a chore, just need to cut a 3 mm wide strip of masking tape, eyeball-cut a rectangle, check what window it will fit, put it on, next rectangle.😄

 

I have considered putting in an interior, but online photos of finished builds have convinced me that it is quite some money and effort for (IMO) very little in terms of a result, except perhaps if you add lighting, which is not my thing.

So: next step, glue the hull parts together.  I will try to postpone gluing in the windows for as long as possible, to avoid any chance of getting paint where it shouldn't go.

 

Parts crudely masked, just to save me the work of cleaning up black paint on parts that will be white:

 

Parts primed black - window parts are of course reversed (looking from the inside, so to speak):

 

[hakkikt]

Big parts get glued together.  Basically, everything fits well, but you need some force to let it really sit where it should - if not, you will regret it when the time comes to sand e.g. the forward wing edge.

 

 

The clamps are eating well today. Lego ensures that the front edge (which has sort of a rectangular profile) gets no overlapping parts, to hopefully save on sanding later.

 

 

Almost all parts in the kit have been assembled, except for the base of course.

I will do the cleanup with hull and wings separate for better handling, but I think they can be assembled without a gap that needs to be filled.

Also, I keep telling myself that I will not forget to glue in the windows before hull & wings are joined...

 

 

But it's not forbidden to snap everything together.  Being a serious adult, I will of course not hold it in the air and hum the Blue Danube Waltz.

 

[bianfuxia]

Nice work and looking at your construction engineering I'd say this will be one of the most structurally sound model kits ever made. That thing is not falling apart during atmospheric re-entry!

[hakkikt]

It's been awhile 😇 but I got sidelined by the April Blitzbuild and by the Heller GB... Blitzbuild is over, but I am neglecting the Heller subject now, but that deadline is more than a month away.

 

So, filling and sanding, filling and sanding... some problems cannot easily be addressed by filling and sanding, in particular the "inlet" or whatever it is at the nose of the plane. The seam runs through the backplate of the opening and there is no easy way to sand this, so I decided to approach this differently and cut a plate, which I inserted after cleaning up the inside of the inlet as far as possible.

 

Cut and ready to be glued in (image is not as sharp as it could be, I tried the macro setting on the mobile🙄)

 

 

 

...and glued in:

 

[bianfuxia]

I can't believe all these years I've never thought of that - great tip!

 

And excellent to see this back on line. 

[hakkikt]

Filling and sanding continues... the kit feels like a mix between modern engineering and short-run, new places to fill crop up whenever you think you have come close to the first coat of paint.

 

One nasty source of problems for me was the ventral lower battery of nozzles, which is inserted as one part that resembles a very flat "U".  That part doesn't fit well (it is too short in the two legs and too narrow as a whole), and I thought I could make it fit by supporting it and using Vallejo putty for the rest.  After some toiling, I decided that cutting off the last nozzles on the "U" (which were misshaped anyway) would solve my problem, but it didn't.  How it all didn't work, you can see from this image - I will readily admit that filling isn't my strongest ability in modelling.

 

 

 

So, I decided to go the more radical way... it might be more time-consuming, but I enjoy making stuff from plastic much more than filling and sanding.

I sanded off all the nozzles (only the ventral set, the dorsal set is fine) and filled the gaps with self-made liquid-cement-plus-sprues putty.

 

 

Then I made new nozzles out of a small-diameter plastic tube I had laying around.  Not sure what it is made of, but it cuts better than polystyrene and holds its shape when cut.  I gave up from the outset on exact measurements and just made a lot of nozzles, hoping that enough of similar size would come out. 😊

 

 

Then I arranged them (roughly) by size and found that I had enough of one size to do 11 nozzles with some spares, in a pinch.

 

 

Then I glued them on using liquid cement.  The tube material does not react as well to Tamiya Extra Thin, but react it will.  Good enough for solidly sitting on the hull, and that is all I want.

Slowly getting there.  Hope I can put the first coat of paint on very soon.

 

Edit: after some thinking, I seem to remember that the tube material is acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS).

 

Edited May 10 by hakkikt
...found the photo of nozzles sorted, not chaotic...

[PieterC]

Nice and clean solution.  Are you going to use the kit decals?

[hakkikt]

Thanks! 😊

I have thought long about it and finally decided to use the kit decals.  They may not be the best representation of panel lines and panel colours, but it is an extensive, nicely made sheet (apparently, one improvement Moebius made in this version of the kit) and it would be a shame to let it go to waste.  Plus, if I didn't, I can see the project go into lack-of-mojo-limbo with trying to colour all the various panels as per the original.

What I will try is: use white Tamiya primer (which is not entirely white) as the first layer of paint, do a few panels in bright white, apply gloss varnish, and then use the kit decals on top. Should give enough variation and a good chance to make the GB deadline (I work freelance, just making the deadline goes with the job 😄).

 

Edited May 8 by hakkikt

[bianfuxia]

Nice work and I think the vents you've made actually look better than the kit part anyway. You are making the right choice with the decals too. Sometimes the ultimate approach becomes impossible because as you say it can drain the mojo tank dry. Sounds like you have landed on the right balance. Keep it up!

[dnl42]

Excellent work on this, especially replacing those nozzles!

 

ISTR Tamiya Thin doesn't have the best grip on ABS. They do have an ABS version, it's in a light blue cap.

[hakkikt]

Had club meeting yesterday, a friend of mine had acupuncture needles to give away. "Can you use some?" he asked.  "I think I have just the right place for them to be", I said.
I had actually thought about replacing the plastic "antennas" (or whatever they are) at the stern of the plane because sooner or later they are going to break - they are like pitot tubes at the other end of the plane.  So the replacement part fell into my lap, what was I to do but act?🤷‍♂️

Interesting thing - these needles (0.3 mm dia) cannot be cut, at least not with what I have on the bench, I had to use a motor tool with an angle grinder.

 

The thin part of the antennas was cut off and a hole drilled into the thicker part to accept the cut-off needles (cut at both ends, they are super sharp of course).

 

 

 

 

Needles were then glued in with old Tamiya Extra Thin... I keep a bottle of half-used Extra Thin around, the plastic that gets into the bottle with the brush over time gives it different properties than a fresh bottle - it dries faster and has a slight filling effect.

 

 

Stability-wise, it sure is an improvement over the plastic, but I am not sure if the coiled part works better for the viewing impression.  The cut-off end looks too stark for me when seen on an image, but in RL it looks fine... as I said, the needle itself has 0.3 mm diameter.

We'll see after painting, but if I don't like it, I am willing to redo that end by plucking out the needles, re-shaping the plastic into cones and just putting in the needles without the coil part.

[bianfuxia]

Personally I think the little coil adds a bit of "technical" sort of look to those antennae and I think it looks good. Perhaps the coil enhances the capability of whatever it is those things do - seems pretty important to de-orbiting or docking...or something . Probably an enhancement they put on after that near mis-docking in 2003? 

 

 

[hakkikt]

Last thing to do before the fuselage joins the wings, everything filled and sanded... but one.

 

The windscreen has a mediocre fit at best, so I tried what I do when canopies need a tiny bit of filler - I glued it on with Blufixx, carefully removed all glue that was not where it was supposed to be, and then hardened it.  Didn't work so well at first, the glue stayed tacky.  I put the whole thing in the sun for half an hour, not really palpable progress.  So I changed the batteries on the UV lamp, and that did it, sort of... the glue became sandable, but I the joint was so irregular that I had to sand away more than I wanted (with 600 grit paper), and into the glass.  I bit into the sour apple (as we say here) and did some finishing with 1000 grit and 1200 grit, but I did not have the spirit for more and followed up with a thick layer of Future.

 

I think the Future did it at last - if you look closely, you can see the two transparent layers, the windscreen and the future above it.  Transitions to the plastic look good, I am not willing to spend more work here.  Masking will cover much less than what is transparent now... perhaps the double-glass effect will in fact be interesting (like in an XB-70), and I hope the rest will blend well into the fuselage.  I cannot really say without a layer of paint.

 

 

 

Whatever it will be, I am done here, the result will be the result.🤷‍♂️

 

Next step this evening: joining the fuselage and the wings.

Not much sanding involved... in fact, I hope none at all.  Wash the model with dishsoap, set aside to dry, white primer tomorrow morning.

Still optimistic that I can make the gallery deadline.

 

Edited May 11 by hakkikt

[hakkikt]

"Fuselage and wings will go together smoothly", I thought, "I have dryfitted them often enough."

 

This is what really happened... at first glance, the line between fuselage and wing assembly is straight and does fit, but in practice you have a choice: exert pressure or be left with clefts to fill.  I really had no mind to fill anything anymore with this kit.

It still required some liquid cement at the starboard line of contact and a little sanding to remove the traces, but good enough.

 

 

 

"Wing-to-fuselage fit is excellent, little to no filler will be needed", I had thought.

Obviously, I had underestimated the gap between the front edge of the wing assembly and the fuselage.

But I cannot complain, the gap was wide and regular enough to be filled with evergreen strips.  Cost me the detailing at the front ends of the lights(?) (that's what they are on the 1/72 version, although the whole thing looks more like small intakes to me) at the very tip of the leading edge extensions, but they looks better flat anyway.  Will decide later if I want to add lights there.

 

 

 

 

 

I hope this has been the last filling and sanding with this kit, but the truth will come out after the primer.

Anyway, this is how she looks cleaned, drying and almost ready to be primed this evening (windscreen needs to be masked of course), for good or bad.

 

 

[AdrianMF]

Looking good! I like the way you have built it to minimise the amount of cleanup required.

 

It does look a lot different to (and better than) the Airfix kit; I recently managed to get one for a sensible price on EBay and I've been comparing it to your pictures.

 

Regards,

Adrian

[bianfuxia]

This is coming along really well and I also like your sleek building techniques. The windscreen/canopy looks great actually.

 

One thing I just noticed which I quite like about this spacecraft is how small the passenger cabin is compared to the rest of the ship. Seems realistic to me - presumably there's a lot of fuel and equipment to also fit in - I like that they went for realism (as they did with everything in that movie). It would have been too easy to just smash a big full-length airliner cabin in there.

 

Keep going! You're gonna make it!

[hakkikt]

A few things went wrong with the first coat of primer: somehow, dust and fibres were suddenly in the air and landed visibly on the model, and a split-second decision (model dropping) resulted in a very visible fingerprint.

Kept sort of calm, noticed (once again) that with spraycan primer, things look much better when dry because the coat is actually very thin. Removed dust by touch (I have very dry hands, never a problem) and used wet 1000 grit paper to remove the most stubborn dust and the fingerprint. Cleaned the spraybooth and vowed to keep it closed when not in use, even with short intervals. Washed the plane, gave her a second coat, and this is how she looks this morning:

 

 

It's probably the relief endorphines😄 but I am quite happy with how she looks.  Now I have a morning's work time to decide if the filler traces that I found on the engine are worth going over or if I continue straight with the white. But there is still time.

[Rob Sutto]

I've been catching up with this one, it's looking great @hakkikt, the nozzles and needle modifications are impressive 

[hakkikt]

After four layers of white, I guess she isn't getting any whiter.

My paint mix is Tamiya XF-2 and X-2 with Tamiya 20A thinner (I try to avoid spraying matt white alone), mixed something like 25:25:50, with the early coats getting more matt white and the later more gloss.

On a whim, I decided to try and mask what I call the "reactor area" (with the ribs) in the hope that the not-quite-white primer might produce some contrast with the white coat.  If not, then I have learned something and will in the future stop with the primer.😊

 

I hope to find the time to get some black on the big engine parts today, then tomorrow gloss coat and the decals.

After the decals, I may try some panel lining, but I want to see how this looks with the decals on (which have panel lines already printed on, see photo in the first post). I might skip the panel lining altogether.

Sunday is the last day, but all that remains is some black on the small engines and the final semimatt coat.  Plan says I can make the deadline... we will see...

 

 

[hakkikt]

Main engine exhausts masked...

 

 

...and masking removed after spraying Tamiya X-18 Semi-Gloss Black.

As you can see, masking over the primer-only ribbed section did not result in a hue difference that one can really see... I suspect what little difference there is, is the result of the black interior still shining through the primer. Perhaps next time save on paint and spray on a third coat of primer?🤔

 

 

Started with the bottom decals yesterday evening (I am posting this taking a break from decaling the top).

I have never handled decals that large, but it sort of works, the quality is good. Two decals out of five broke, but that's my handling, not the decal quality.
To avoid bubbles, I always put on a layer of water mixed with decal glue before placing the decal, this has worked so far with the exception of two minor bubbles, absolutely acceptable and easily corrected (I hope).

 

Still uncertain whether this build will make it to the finish line, but as the Klingons say: "Three thousand throats can be cut in one night by a running man". 😊

[hakkikt]

Big flat decals need to go over double-curved surfaces, what will happen?  It is natural, but I still didn't predict it, now I know: decals make kinks, like wrapping paper over a football.

Normal softener has no effect, I use Mr. Mark Softer, and that is starting to eat the decals right before my eyes.

If what is happening here turns out as bad as it looks half-dried, this build not going to be finished. In fact, one part of me wants to trash it already🤬, the other part advises to wait until everything is dry and then assess.🙄

[bianfuxia]

Listen to the other part! Don't trash it! 

 

What's in the pics so far is really excellent work. So wait and see before you decide the next step.